Koch Enjoys His Moment In Campaign

By ALISON MITCHELL

Published: October 16, 1993

Former Mayor Edward I. Koch basked once again in the limelight of a mayoral race yesterday as political strategists scrambled to assess the effects of his reach across party lines to endorse Rudolph W. Giuliani, the Republican-Liberal challenger to Mayor David N. Dinkins.

"Isn't it wonderful at 68 to still be relevant?" Mr. Koch chuckled after his endorsement of Mr. Giuliani in his Daily News column brought him a barrage of attention and phone calls.

Campaigning at a drug treatment center in the Lower East Side and in Chinatown, Mr. Giuliani put the former Mayor's support at the top of a list of recent endorsements from prominent Democrats that included Robert F. Wagner Jr., the third-generation scion of a Democratic dynasty; Edward N. Costikyan, once Democratic leader of Manhattan, and Elizabeth Colon, who made a failed bid for Congress last year.

"The thing about Ed Koch that I think everyone realizes is that he loves New York and that for him the best interests of New York are paramount," said Mr. Giuliani, who as United States Attorney once prosecuted several members of the Koch administration for corruption. "So his endorsement is one that I am very honored by because it is a very independent endorsement. It comes from someone who is looking after the future of the city, the city that he gave 12 years of his life to." 'He's a Bit Bitter'

Mr. Dinkins, who ended Mr. Koch's 12-year reign as mayor by defeating him in a Democratic primary race in 1989, shrugged off Mr. Koch's action. Speaking to reporters after he was endorsed for re-election by the Transport Workers Union, the Mayor said: "I know how he feels. After all, this upstart from Harlem defeated him. You know, three-term mayor and he was defeated by me. I appreciate that he's a bit bitter about it."

In response to a question, Mr. Dinkins refused to call Mr. Koch a traitor, saying: "I think any person is free to do as they wish. But he just has to be a little bit careful about calling himself a Democrat."

Mr. Koch refused to predict how many votes he could sway with his endorsement, saying, "I don't know whether my endorsement moves anybody other than my sister and my brother." But he responded tartly to Mr. Dinkins's jibe about his Democratic credentials, saying, "I probably represent in philosophy more Democrats than David Dinkins."

Democrats close to Mr. Dinkins maintained that voters who would be affected by Mr. Koch were already supporters of Mr. Giuliani. But aides to Mr. Giuliani disagreed, pointing to either the drama of Mr. Koch's decision in 1965 as a young Democratic reformer to abandon the Democratic ticket in favor of John V. Lindsay, who won election to mayor, or to the former Mayor's help in drawing Jewish support for Senator Alfonse M. D'Amato when Mr. Koch endorsed the Republican in 1992.

"I can't think of a better kosherizer than Ed Koch as joined by Bobby Wagner," said the Liberal Party leader, Raymond B. Harding, speaking of Mr. Koch's ability to draw Jewish voters.

Several political strategists independent of the two campaigns said that at the very least Mr. Koch's endorsement had given a boost to Mr. Giuliani after two weeks in which he had been put on the defensive by Mr. Dinkins's efforts to link him to the Reagan and Bush Administrations and to remind voters of Mr. Giuliani's hesitations on the abortion issue in 1989. Mr. Giuliani has long said that he favors abortion rights.

"In the last two weeks the coverage and commercials have been a plus for Mr. Dinkins," said Philip J. Friedman, who had handled City Council President Andrew J. Stein's aborted bid for mayor. "It puts a halt to Dinkins's pace." With polls showing the mayoral race neck-and-neck, he added, that even a small response to Mr. Koch could prove crucial. "If the net Koch positive is 1 or 2 points that could be significant," he said.

A New York Times/WCBS-TV News Poll of 804 registered voters taken Sept. 29 through Oct. 3 found that 12 percent of those questioned said they would be more likely to support a candidate who had won Mr. Koch's endorsement, 8 percent said they would be less likely to vote for such a candidate and 74 percent said they would not be affected by the former Mayor's choice. The margin of sampling error was plus or minus four percentage points.

Mr. Koch, who is virtually a one-man media conglomerate with newspaper columns and television and radio shows, said that his contract with Fox television prevented him from campaigning for a candidate, taping commercials as he did for Senator D'Amato, or going to fund-raising events. But it was widely expected that Mr. Giuliani's campaign would use Mr. Koch's column in direct mail and television advertisements.

In the Daily News column, Mr. Koch offered a withering critique of Mr. Dinkins's four years in office, saying, "David Dinkins has failed as the Mayor of the City of New York" and describing New York as "an ungoverned city."

"Apparently mob rule can prevail in New York City," he wrote, citing Mr. Dinkins's response to a black-led boycott of two Korean grocers in the Flatbush section of Brooklyn in 1990 and to four days of racial strife in Crown Heights in 1991. "The Mayor, once again, was paralyzed," Mr. Koch said.